The Man in Blue
by Thuktun Flishithy
Summary: A one-shot dealing with what would happen if one of the most noblebright characters in fiction arrived in one of the most grimdark settings.


I don't think I'll ever forget the first time I saw him.

Yeah, sure, almost everybody here has seen him at least once in their life. Sometimes it's from a distance, more like a blur than anything else, or sometimes it's up close, enough to look into his eyes. A few lucky ones have even managed to _talk_ to him, if only briefly. But most of the people here grew up knowing about him, knowing that he was around.

As for me?

Compared to most of the people on this planet, I don't have the most standard of backstories. I was around nineteen Terran years old when I was shipped out with the rest of the Eleison 1st Company to invade this place. Looking back, I can't help but wince at the man I used to be, wearing armor that might as well have been paper, and feeling like I could storm the Eye of Terror alone. I guess that was expected, though, considering where I grew up.

Kyrie was one of the more militarized Imperial worlds, somewhere in the Segmentata Pacifica. Nothing like Cadia, of course; I don't think any other world could reach the level of that shit hole, but it was definitely not some idyllic agri-world. I grew up with the 'Imperial truth' everywhere in my life: in the books I read, in the classes I took, in the conversations everyone would have.

"The Emperor protects!" they would always say, in one way or another, in propaganda voxcasts or sermons. "Death to the xeno, the heretic, the mutant!"

At first, I ate that crap up like a hungry grot. I practically jumped at the opportunity to join the Guard, and go out into the galaxy to fight for the Emperor, to get my guts slurped out by ravenous Tyranids, to have my beating heart sacrificed to the Ruinous Powers, or to be dragged screaming into Commoragh for the twisted desires of those knife-eared cunts.

In retrospect, getting sent to quell a 'secession' was probably the luckiest thing to ever happen to me.

'The Free Worlds', they were calling themselves. Probably the most original name in the galaxy, second only to the 'Flesh Eaters'. It actually started more than a hundred years ago, in a subsector near Damocles Gulf, of all places. It was one world, then suddenly two, then ten, and by the time I was shipped out, there were more than a hundred planets that'd eschewed the 'light of the Emperor'.

I wasn't amongst the first encroachment into this place. A Sisters of Battle detachment was first sent eighty years ago, only to have the ships drift back into Imperial territory with disabled engines and no casualties. Of course, such a mysterious event didn't stop the idiots running the Imperium, and so some Inquisitors decided to go, backed up by a few Guard regiments from a few neighboring systems.

The Inquistors came back in a manner similar to the Sisters of Battle: disabled ships, but no casualties. As for the Guard, however, not a single ship came back. The Inquisitors had no explanation for what happened; apparently, they were suddenly out of the fight before it even began, hurtling towards the nearest system. They didn't even assault a single one of the Free Worlds.

A Tyrannid incursion put a stop to any more assaults for the time being. Rumor had it that the 'nids also entered the ever-expanding sphere of Free Worlds territory, only to be mysteriously slaughtered. It'd certainly explain the burnt-up husks of Hive Ships that came drifting out from that general direction. Same thing happened for a minor Waaagh that came thirty years later.

But of course you already know most of that. That's not why I'm telling this story.

Despite all the mystery about the Free Worlds, I wasn't worried in the slightest when my regiment was assigned with some others to reclaim the insurrectionist planets. After all, this time, we'd be fighting alongside some of the Space Marines themselves, from the Imperial Fists chapter. I'd only heard about them, growing up. Transhumans of incredible skill and strength, created by the science of the Emperor Himself to be the bulwark against the terror. I was hoping I'd get to see them in action before the campaign's end.

Again, I was an idiot. But like any other idiot, I didn't know that; I was just excited that I was finally going to fight for the Emperor and prove myself as a soldier of the Imperium.

I didn't feel an ounce of trepidation as the ship I was on warped to the nearest of the Free Worlds, some agri-world called Cansa. I just checked my useless lasgun, cleaned my armor, and made sure I was ready to fight. We ran drills for most of the flight, and also held sermons, praising the Emperor for his constant vigilance. When we weren't doing those things, we were being fed more propaganda to get us ready for the fight. Films about the evils of succession, and the dangers of straying from the Emperor's light, along with condemnations of allying with xenos.

It was buttering us up for the main event, getting our war-wood up so we wouldn't have a moment of doubt while we were slaughtering anyone who didn't surrender immediately, or an ounce of sympathy while we threw civilians into camps. A few people didn't eat the grox-shit, but they didn't say anything, not when there were Commisars making sure we stayed in line.

Of course, none of it ended up mattering, because the battle was over before we knew it.

I didn't even see what was happening when we warped into the system. I just heard alarms blaring through the ship, and saw some techpriests crapping their robes as they scurried through the halls. I later learned that our engine had been neatly ripped out almost immediately after we entered realspace, like some giant hand simply reached in and yanked it free.

Of course, I didn't know that at the time. I just knew we were under attack, and that I needed to be ready, along with everyone else in my regiment. I remember hopping out of my bunk in my skivvies, running over to grab my lasgun and armor.

That was when we got the second big shock.

I still remember it. It was like a gust of wind rolling through the ship, barely a blur, too fast to see. It took me a moment to realize that my lasgun was nowhere to be found, nor was my armor. Whatever came through the ship had done the same for everyone else, taking everything and anything that could be used as a weapon. When I ran into the hall, I saw people with disabled bionics, or sharp patches removed from their uniforms.

I didn't have time to register any of it, really. Everyone around me was freaking out, trying to discern what in the warp had just happened to us. We didn't have time to clear our heads, or try and formulate a response when the entire ship jolted, and more alarms started blaring. I became distinctly aware of a hissing sound that seemed to come from all directions.

That... that was when I started getting scared. For all I knew, daemons were going to start crawling out of my squadmate's eyes, or my blood was going to turn to gravel. My mind began to make up nightmare scenarios, of the insurrectionists having turned to Chaos, or that the Tyrannids hadn't actually failed to take the place, and were swarming through the ship.

That was when I started getting dizzy. At first, I thought it was just nerves, but then I saw some of the other people begin to stumble or slump against the walls, eyelids drooping. By the time I realized that we were probably being drugged by tranq gas, it was too late.

Next thing I remember, I was in small white room, lying on a comfy bed.

That was the start of my deprogramming, even if I didn't know it at the time. All I knew was that I was a prisoner of war, held on an enemy planet. I can't help but groan when I remember how I spat and cursed at the therapists who came to talk to me through the clear door, damning them as heretics that needed to be purged. They never spat back, however; I think their gentle responses were one of the most disarming things about the experience.

I had to admit, there were worse places to be held prisoner. They made sure I was well-fed, even when I went on a hunger-strike for the first week. I think the passivity was important in that regard; I had to come to the door to accept the food, instead of having it shoved down my throat. The same went for the terminal; I went to it of my own accord after a fortnight, if only because the boredom was starting to become unbearable.

The content on the terminal surprised me. I was expecting nothing but propaganda on how amazing the Free Worlds were, or, worse yet, some sort of memetic Chaos texts. I wasn't imagining essays on the psychology of fascism, or the social effects of propaganda. Nor was I expecting papers on free thinking, and on tolerance of people with different lifestyles. There were no attacks on the Imperium; they let me do that myself, after I started realizing how much the papers started resonating with me.

They let me mingle with the rest of my regiment two months after I arrived, once my shrink deemed it safe. It was another month before they gave us choices; we could take classes to find what jobs we were most drawn to and try to integrate, or we could simply take a ship back home.

Three guesses as to what choice I took.

Despite all of the deprogramming I went through, there were still plenty of shocks when I started integrating into society. I wasn't expecting for there to be public knowledge about Chaos, for starters, even if all the educational material was about the dangers and what to do if someone seemed to be heading in the wrong direction. I think that was why there were no Space Marines amongst us.

I _definitely_ was shocked when I saw xenos living alongside everyone else. It was part of the integration process, where they introduced me to a khittish couple that owned an art store in the planet's main city. They had me talk to the couple for a while, and let me ask whatever questions I wanted, as long as I did so politely. I had to admit, that was probably the riskiest part of the whole thing; I was almost ready to try and find a makeshift club when I saw them in the shop.

Through it all, however, I never lost a sense of wonderment as I started learning more and more about the society of the Free Worlds. A society where any non-Chaotic religion could be practiced without persecution, and where humans and xenos of just about any imaginable (and unimaginable) lifestyle lived together. There were no planetary governors, and no nobility. No Arbites, and no servitors. "Heresy" was not a word in their vocabulary.

It took me nearly a year before I was willing to ask them about how it all started. By then, I'd gotten a job as a mechanic, and yet I still didn't know how such a society came about. I suppose I was afraid of the answer, that it was ultimately going to be something linked to the Ruinous Powers.

I almost didn't believe it at first, when they told me about him. A man in blue with incredible power, they said, whose sigil they flew on their banners and used in their official seals, and who had come to the capital world more than a hundred years ago. He was almost like a phantom at first, simply helping those who couldn't (or wouldn't), be helped by anyone else. Then he made himself known to the world, and helped enact great societal change before doing the same for the other worlds.

It was he, my handler said, who'd turned back the Imperium's incursions. It was he who'd destroyed the Tyrannid invasion and Waagh, and it was he who'd disabled the ship and brought us to this world.

At first, I wondered if it was one of the lost Primarchs, or perhaps even an incarnation of the Emperor himself. I asked my handler if this man in blue was the Ruler of the Free Worlds. To that, she simply laughed, and told me that he was not there to rule them. He was there, in his own words, "to lead you by example, and catch you when you fall".

Even after that, I still didn't quite believe it. For quite some time, I viewed him as a symbolic embodiment of their society, and that his deeds were all metaphor for the Free Worlds' actions as a whole. My mind seemed to almost gloss over the blur that had stripped me of my weapons

Then one day, I was walking down the street in the capital of Cansa. I don't even remember why I was doing it; I think I might've been going to a store to buy some groceries. I didn't see the truck barreling towards me until it would've been too late.

Then the next thing I knew, I was on the sidewalk, and I found myself facing him.

In that moment, I was struck speechless. This was no towering demigod, like a Marine or Primarch; he did not exude some unnatural charisma via subtle psyker abilities, overpowering my mind with sheer awe. He could've been anybody. The only thing odd about him was the blue bodysuit and red cape he wore, with that symbol on his chest that looked like a Gothic 'S'.

Then he simply winked at me, and disappeared into the sky.

In that moment, something funny crossed my mind. For all of my life, I had been raised to worship the Emperor, told that he was the Master of Mankind, and that he was constantly looking over me. And yet, I would've probably died a horrific death in his name, along with the billions of others that do so every year, all while either doing nothing to help humankind, or actively making things worse.

This man, however, demanded no worship of me, nor declared himself my master. I was never told to venerate his name, nor would I be executed for even making a joke about him. And yet... this man _was_ protecting me. This being who had singlehandedly slain a Hive Fleet and defeated an Ork Waaagh, who could shatter planets with a blow and outrace light, had gone out of his way to save my life. It was then that I realized I was not going to die in his name; I was going to live humbly in the name of the society he had helped build.

It's been nearly fifty years since that encounter. I know we've had some scares since then, even as we expand outwards. The massive Waaagh that tried to invade us, and the attempts by the Dark Eldar to make slaving raids on our territory. I'm sure none of us will forget the Black Crusade directed towards us, which managed to actually take half a world before being stopped by him.

And yet, I have no fear for the future. It doesn't matter that the Imperium wants us dead for heresy and rebellion, or that Chaos wants to corrupt everything we stand for. Every Tomb World could awaken, and every Hive Fleet could converge on us, backed up by every Craftworld. The full might of the Imperium could turn to us, and the Ruinous Powers could send all of their vile forces towards our home, and I would not be afraid.

No matter what the enemy has on their side, we have the Superman on ours, and that is enough.


End file.
